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Obama’s not doing very much on this entitlements issue, is he?

He’s done just enough to earn credit for trying harder than any other Democratic president to tackle the issue, but he has yet to throw the full weight of his office or his formidable campaign operation behind it. His best chance will come early in his second term as lawmakers confront a series of budget battles, but Obama appears more ready to spend his political capital on guns, immigration and climate change.

The president has never precisely defined what hard choices he would be willing to make on Medicare and Social Security. It’s not even clear what he would do if he had the power to remake the programs on his own, without worrying about opposition from Republicans or Democrats.

And though Obama has talked about shared sacrifice from both parties, he has not gotten to the point in deficit negotiations at which he’s had to pressure rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers to cross their red line on the sacred issues, as House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) did with his own party in raising taxes.

Unless Obama seizes the opportunity in the next few months, entitlement reform will hang over his second term, lurking like a legacy-killer if he hands off the task to the next president, deficit hawks warn.

Blowback

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Nancy Pelosi will not let Obama touch any of the New Deal/Great Society entitlements. He is afraid of her. Nothing will change until she and her generation of 1970s liberals are gone.

Deluded DC liberals actually think they can get Pelosi back as Speaker in 2015. When they don’t and she finally retires, we will see some movement on entitlements. Until then, Obama is going to do nothinjg but stall and demagogue and push other issues.

I have thought much the same thing on a slightly wider scale. The current “in office” liberal is different than a GenX/Y/ME liberal. The “in office” variety is that 50s-70′s type, and they have done all they can to do the following:

1. preserve and expand the status quo
2. maintain power at the top most levels
3. pick and choose successors
4. keep everyone else right where they are

This is going to blow up in their face in a major way. The liberals they leave behind are stunted and of poor stock, they cannot present their ideas or ideals beyond a talking point or some sort of vague idea that’s grown hazy with time.

But he didn’t write that bill or even care what was actually in it. All he cared about was being able to sign it. He campaigned against half the crap that’s in it. Now he says it’s brilliant and untouchable.

He has no ideas and no clue. This is why I think he won’t actually pass an immigration bill; there isn’t one on the shelf that can be dusted off and rammed through. But then, I don’t think he actually wants a bill passed; he would rather have the issue to flog Republicans with in the Latino community than actually solve the problem.

Oh I don’t know. 0′s lack of interest is growing government dependency, so there is that success to taught. Plus as an added bonus he is causing great harm to the future finances of the country. Not to mention the coming destruction of the finest health care system ever built. Pretty great legacy if you ask him or his supporters. The real fun begins as the bills come due.

As soon as Pelosi and her ilk are off the stage, you will see a head-snapping epiphany by young liberals who finally realize their generation was enslaved and impoverished by Pelosi’s greed. They won’t hestitate to slash Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid and public employee pensions, once they realize they will have to cough up 70% of their earnings to pay for them.

there are really only a handful of solutions to this massive Ponzi scheme of entitlements that is coming home to roost now, that the Baby Boomers have created. Yes, decades of higher and higher benefits promised with lower taxes and kicking the can is on their watch

1. Massive tax increases. Income taxes are now radioactive to ever raise on anyone except the evil 1% (e.g. the tantrums morons threw about payroll taxes going back up this month). So no adult discussion about income taxes for the 47% who pay zero. The only answer is a GDP killing VAT then (rebranded as a “national sales tax”). I’m OK with this because everyone would pay, if we have to raise taxes

2. Massive benefit cuts. Never happen

3. Selective euthenasia of Baby Boomers as they retire. Obamacare and the IPAB will by design do a little of this.

So there you have it. Tax increases and benefit cuts are off the table. We’ve screwed the evil 2% already with the magical tax increased the commies wanted.

Lsm wont care….his legacy will be defined by the lsm lovefest there won’t be a negative things said about him

cmsinaz on January 22, 2013 at 12:25 PM

Not if the economy collapses on his watch from all the debt he’s piling on. I agree that if it doesn’t happen til at least 2021(a full term after he’s left office), he may escape most of the blame especially if a Republican is in the White House at the time. But if it happens during this decade, that’ll be his legacy.